The incident began about noon Tuesday when Howell entered John's Jewelers in the Bayfair Center, presented a fake identification card to the clerk and asked to see a gold necklace worth $3,000, police said.

After being handed the necklace, Howell fled with it and got into a car driven by Brown, police said. A responding officer, who viewed surveillance video that captured Howell allegedly running to the getaway car, then provided a description of the vehicle to undercover officers.

Those officers soon found the car parked in front of a "Cash for Gold" pawn shop in East Oakland. They watched the men as they left the store and got into the car, which the officers stopped on the 1400 block of 66th Avenue in East Oakland.